[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 16, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H4573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                GAMBLING IS DESTROYING OUR YOUNG PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I just read today in The New York Times on the 
front page an article entitled, ``Those Seductive Snake Eyes: Tales of 
Growing Up Gambling.''
  The bad news is that gambling in this country is growing. The worst 
news is that the gambling addiction is growing fastest among young 
people. The article says,

        There is a growing concern among experts on compulsive 
     gambling about the number of youths who, confronted with 
     State lotteries, the growth of family-oriented casinos, and 
     sometimes lax enforcement of wagering laws, gamble at an 
     earlier and earlier age and gamble excessively.

  The story quotes a recent Harvard Medical School study which was 
conducted by Dr. Howard Shaffer which found that the rate of problem 
gambling among adolescents is more than twice the rate for adults. 
Twice the rate of adults, and these people are going to soon be adults.
  The article is shocking. It cites stories of young people who have 
hit the bottom at a very young age, and all because of gambling.
  One young man got hooked on gambling as a teenager. The problem was 
so bad his parents had to put locks on all the rooms and closets in the 
house so he would not run out and sell the family's belongings to 
gamble. He has been to prison twice for credit card fraud and writing 
false checks. Later in the article he talks about how he first got 
interested in gambling. When he was growing up, he used to help his 
grandmother pick lottery numbers at a neighborhood store, and then he 
used to go gambling with her on trips to Atlantic City. He would wait 
for her outside the casinos peering into the windows wishing that he 
could play.
  The New York Times piece said that at one high school in the 
northeast U.S., kids said they knew a fellow student who was a 
professional bookie who booked bets right there at the high school. 
Amazingly, that school set up a mock casino as part of its prom night 
festivities. The school principal said the students had no problems 
with the various games. They knew them all well and apparently needed 
no coaching.
  This is a problem everywhere in America, all over this country. 
According to the article, an LSU University study conducted last year 
found that among Louisiana young people age 18 to 21, 1 in 7 were, and 
I quote, ``problem gamblers, some of them pathological, youths with a 
chronic and progressive psychological disorder characterized by an 
emotional dependence on gambling and loss of control over their 
gambling.''
  Everyone in this country is worried about tobacco use among 
teenagers, and I am too, but we have another problem, Mr. Speaker, that 
all of us have to address, and that is the problem of gambling in this 
country.
  I hope the country wakes up, although I believe the country is far 
ahead of the Congress and far ahead of the elected officials, because 
every time gambling is on a referendum, they vote it down. But I hope 
the governors wake up, all of them who are trying to ply gambling and 
raise money by lotteries, I hope they wake up.
  Lastly, I hope this Congress wakes up. And I will tell my colleagues, 
nobody in this Congress who cares about people and talks about these 
problems ought to be taking any political activity money from the 
gambling interests, because if my colleagues will read this story in 
today's New York Times to see how this is ruining our young people, how 
then can one rationalize that one has taken money from the gambling 
interests?
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues, I plead with my colleagues, 
read today's New York Times and see what is happening to our young 
people.

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